Named and numbered legions as in RS2 possible as a Rome2 mod?

[Paladin247]

I'm not a modder; it exceeds my feeble skills. However, I've been playing RTW since it came out, but mostly in modded form, RTR, EB, SPQR and my favorite RS2 (Roma Surrectum II). What the RS2 team accomplished given the limits of the original engine is truly astonishing, completely revamped gameplay, textures, unit models and scenery are all terrific. Last night I played a battle on a snow covered field in an Aspen woods that was so beautiful as to be a distraction from the fighting. However, the feature of the mod that I'm fondest of is the named and numbered legions which all have their own uniforms, shield patterns and vexillum insignia. If you haven't played, you're missing something. Here's the link to the legions' page:
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...-Roman-Legions. It takes a while to load sometimes, but you'll see how cool they are. That you can name and number legions in Rome 2 without the unique uniforms, colors, shields and vexillium of RS2 is by comparison a pallid rendition.

In addition to the 29 legions modeled, there are also about a score of auxiliary cohorts and cavalry alae for the Roman faction alone. The other factions likewise have some very unique and colorful units.

When Jack Lusted got hired by CA, there was elation in the RS2 community. He was a member of the RS2 team altho I don't know exactly what he did, but the feeling was that CA was hiring him to bring the best features of RS2 into RTW2, the legions being foremost in a lot of minds, certainly mine. They were the feature I most wanted to see ported over. In retrospect a lot of our hopes were overly optimistic even without any suspicion of what a disasterous mess the original release would turn out to be. Lusted as a new hire at CA simply would not have had the heft to effect that extensive a design feature unless CA were so inclined which they clearly were not. So if it is ever going to happen, it would seem the moding community is the only hope.

As I understand this at the level of my pedestrian mod knowledge, the big problem is the number of unit slots available. In RTW I believe this is hard coded. The 29 legions demand 58 slots, two each, one for the eagle cohort and one for the rest. But the RS2 Pros from Dover figured this out on the original engine. There's also an issue in RS2 where the legions are recruited/retrained geographically with certain legions tied to certain provinces. This often creates nightmarish logistic problems shuttling casualties back to home provinces across the Med. That piece is likely not compatible with R2's retraining methods and in my mind is not an essential element.

The individual legions are the thing really. If you haven't played with them, they really create an immersive effect that is difficult to verbalize. So what do you think? Could it be done at some point once CA gets the basic game squared away?

[HUNK]

What a wonderful idea, I would love to see this in Rome II.

[The Border Reiver]

Creating named and numbered legions was the easy part in RTW1, but it took nearly the modding community nearly 5 years to work our how to do it! I think the SPQR mod was the first to do it?

I have never played RS2 and am unsure how they implemented it, but how I created my legions in my mod (Ager Romanus for Darth Mod 8) was to simply duplicate the roman military buildings 13 times, align those 13 legion buildings to be made in and only in a specific region. Then by duplicating every roman military unit 13 times to be built in the relevant regions by the use of hidden resources, this enabled you to then alter the text files so that you had 13 differently named legions. However, I didn't go further and create different skins etc.

Bearing in mind, that Rome 2 is only 30 days old, and the modding community has already made significant changes already, the potential for Rome 2 is staggering, and the future is very exciting. The complexity of Rome 2 and it's coding far exceeds the simplicity of RTW1, and hopefully we will be able to mod region specific legions like what you mention.

[LestaT]

Creating named and numbered legions was the easy part in RTW1, but it took nearly the modding community nearly 5 years to work our how to do it! I think the SPQR mod was the first to do it?

It didn't took 5 years. Any not sure who's the first. Either SPQR or Imperator. Couldn't the link on TWC but it was originally released on the old RTR forum, being a sub mod.

Imperator II was release here at TWC on June 29 2006 though.

On topic, yes it can be done. In fact it's already in vanilla where certain legions raised in certain regions will get certain name.

[HUNK]

So, can this be done?

[LoneWolf_Sam]

Here is how I see this:
1) As to the recruiting in different regions I imagine it's possible due to having different auxilia recruited based on the province the military building is in (I think its based off hidden resources).
2) It's completely possible to create new units and add them as recruit-able to military buildings --> Through this nifty unit editor: http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...w-Unit-added))
3) It's possible to add new shield designs: http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...an-Shields-Mod
4) And the colours an individual unit uses can be altered with this table: unit_variants_colours
See the praetorians from Zaskar70's Roman reskin mod: http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?621408
5) The same mod (Zaskar70's) also shows that officers armour can be edited. Whether this extends to creating new officer entries in: land_units_officers
that have different weapons (some creates the different vexila) and can then be assigned to each new individual legion unit, I don't know.

From this I believe it would be possible, you just have to persuade someone to skin new shield designs, make the vexila and add it to officers, add each of the new units and assign them to provinces - you can see which resource to add by checking the auxilia units available in the province you want and copying that resource - Adding independant colours - easy bit, even i can do that. Although i'm not sure about the difference in helmets from RS2, although I suppose if you can persuade someone to make some new helmets you could add the different helmets to the desired units.

Source - Me investigating modders files to see how they've done things - and alter for my personal use.

Best wishes to you in getting this done, will be watching
Sam.

[Paladin247]

dvk901 is the main moderator of RS2 and to my knowledge one of, if not the key, developer of the mod. He wrote this in the RS2 forum where I posted an echo of this thread telling the members of this post.

"This issue, given what I've seen of Rome2 so far, is one that definitely turns me away from it if it is not possible. In fact, I sense (though I may be wrong and am willing to undergo correction), may be an endemic problem with Rome2. I've heard through the grapevine, and somewhere in my reading, that Rome2 has a limit of 700 units. If that is so, then there is a big problem. RTW had a limit of 500 units, spread over 21 factions. That means that each faction could feasibly have 23+ units available to it...give or take. If you even have 50 factions in Rome2 (I haven't counted them, but there seems to be a boatload), then that means you have at best 14 units available to each faction. As you can see, pure math shows that Rome2 has lost something in the writing. The Romans in RS2 have at least 101 units, 56 of which are the named and numbered Legions...cohorts and first cohorts. That would put a pretty big dent in Rome2's abilities."

[redxavier]

Yes, it's entirely possible, there's already work underway in a couple mods to implement them, and no there's no 700 unit limit in R2. We are already over that number in the vanilla game.

[XIIICaesar]

I'm not a modder; it exceeds my feeble skills. However, I've been playing RTW since it came out, but mostly in modded form, RTR, EB, SPQR and my favorite RS2 (Roma Surrectum II). What the RS2 team accomplished given the limits of the original engine is truly astonishing, completely revamped gameplay, textures, unit models and scenery are all terrific. Last night I played a battle on a snow covered field in an Aspen woods that was so beautiful as to be a distraction from the fighting. However, the feature of the mod that I'm fondest of is the named and numbered legions which all have their own uniforms, shield patterns and vexillum insignia. If you haven't played, you're missing something. Here's the link to the legions' page:
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...-Roman-Legions. It takes a while to load sometimes, but you'll see how cool they are. That you can name and number legions in Rome 2 without the unique uniforms, colors, shields and vexillium of RS2 is by comparison a pallid rendition.

In addition to the 29 legions modeled, there are also about a score of auxiliary cohorts and cavalry alae for the Roman faction alone. The other factions likewise have some very unique and colorful units.

When Jack Lusted got hired by CA, there was elation in the RS2 community. He was a member of the RS2 team altho I don't know exactly what he did, but the feeling was that CA was hiring him to bring the best features of RS2 into RTW2, the legions being foremost in a lot of minds, certainly mine. They were the feature I most wanted to see ported over. In retrospect a lot of our hopes were overly optimistic even without any suspicion of what a disasterous mess the original release would turn out to be. Lusted as a new hire at CA simply would not have had the heft to effect that extensive a design feature unless CA were so inclined which they clearly were not. So if it is ever going to happen, it would seem the moding community is the only hope.

As I understand this at the level of my pedestrian mod knowledge, the big problem is the number of unit slots available. In RTW I believe this is hard coded. The 29 legions demand 58 slots, two each, one for the eagle cohort and one for the rest. But the RS2 Pros from Dover figured this out on the original engine. There's also an issue in RS2 where the legions are recruited/retrained geographically with certain legions tied to certain provinces. This often creates nightmarish logistic problems shuttling casualties back to home provinces across the Med. That piece is likely not compatible with R2's retraining methods and in my mind is not an essential element.

The individual legions are the thing really. If you haven't played with them, they really create an immersive effect that is difficult to verbalize. So what do you think? Could it be done at some point once CA gets the basic game squared away?

Hey, I've updated Caesar's legions by Franky235 to work with EE. The DEI, Radious, and Vanilla versions. DEI/Radious are in their submod forums and the Vanilla is in Rome II: Modifications>Battle Map. I recently recieved permission from Pacco of RSII though to use RSII legion shields and the RSII AOR system. Over the next few weeks I'll be working on my own mod and when ready will release it as a replacement for Caesar's Legions. Until then I'll continue upkeep of CL but no new content. Once I release my mod it will be as close to RSII as I can get it in reference to the Legion units and the AOR system being based by the city instead of just the province. It'll make for a more challenging experience and will have legions recruitable all over the place in multiple citie/provinces just as in RSII. It'll be as close as I can get it to a RSII legions port to Rome II. When released I'll discontinue Caesar's Legions update/upkeep and replace all links etc. with my mod. It'll feature Kaziel's Romans and other different various textures/skins/models/unit I've gotten permission to use from Radious and various steam workshop mods. Until then look up Caesar's Legions and enjoy that while I get RSII legions and AOR prepped.

[Antiokhos Euergetes]

Hey, I've updated Caesar's legions by Franky235 to work with EE. The DEI, Radious, and Vanilla versions. DEI/Radious are in their submod forums and the Vanilla is in Rome II: Modifications>Battle Map. I recently recieved permission from Pacco of RSII though to use RSII legion shields and the RSII AOR system. Over the next few weeks I'll be working on my own mod and when ready will release it as a replacement for Caesar's Legions. Until then I'll continue upkeep of CL but no new content. Once I release my mod it will be as close to RSII as I can get it in reference to the Legion units and the AOR system being based by the city instead of just the province. It'll make for a more challenging experience and will have legions recruitable all over the place in multiple citie/provinces just as in RSII. It'll be as close as I can get it to a RSII legions port to Rome II. When released I'll discontinue Caesar's Legions update/upkeep and replace all links etc. with my mod. It'll feature Kaziel's Romans and other different various textures/skins/models/unit I've gotten permission to use from Radious and various steam workshop mods. Until then look up Caesar's Legions and enjoy that while I get RSII legions and AOR prepped.

That all sounds great, look forward to it, I might just start an Augustus campaign now

[♔DARTH LEGO♔]

this has been done by Toon in AIOM, works beutifuylly with reform triggers and is a lot of fun with all the AOR just like RS2

ENJOY

[LEONARDO THE GREAT]

This is not really a new idea, modders who are capable of doing this have done so already, or at least something similar. Just search for them on steam. some may not be updated but I am sure the authors will get around to updating their work eventually. The modding community is not short of ideas, they are short of modders.